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Immigration debate now on ag's turf

The issues of wages and the overall number of allowed visas are still being debated. | AP Photo

The farmworker program pits agribusiness against workers’ groups. The two sides are in a standoff similar to the one just weeks ago between the AFL-CIO and the chamber regarding low-skilled workers. Similarly, the agriculture debate is over setting the visa cap and calculating the prevailing wage for farmworkers.

Late last week, it appeared that farmworkers and growers reached a bitter impasse that could have resulted in agriculture language being excluded from an overall immigration bill. Workers want a low visa cap and a high base wage, while the farm growers generally want the opposite.

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On Tuesday, the Gang’s principal negotiators — Rubio, Schumer, Bennet, Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) — will attempt to iron out several sticking points that stand in the way of a deal. Republicans in the group are expected to brief their colleagues in a closed-door lunch on Tuesday, while the topic is certain to come up at a separate Senate Democratic lunch.

“We’re getting very close,” Durbin said Monday evening. “We’re going to meet tomorrow and try to wrap up details and the points of contention, so I feel pretty good about the process.”

But hanging over the last phase of the talks is how to resolve the long-standing differences over a foreign workers’ program. While the low-skilled worker program was long anticipated as a last stumbling block, the divisive lobbying over an agricultural program caught some immigration reform lobbyists by surprise.

The farm industry is focused on the H-2A visa program, which allows it to hire temporary agriculture workers for jobs that it cannot fill with U.S. citizens. The process is one that has long frustrated both employers and worker representatives.

It allows for foreign workers to enter the U.S. on a visa for no longer than one year — visas cannot be extended more than three consecutive years. In fiscal year 2011, about 55,000 H-2A visas were issued, according to the State Department. States like North Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky and Louisiana are where most of the workers with H-2A visas reside.

The two sides appear satisfied with the proposal under the Senate group’s plan to allow farmworkers currently living in the U.S. illegally to accelerate their path citizenship over the rest of the undocumented population.

Negotiators for both sides are continuing to meet, according to several sources. But it’s unclear whether they will be able to come to a final deal by the time senators want to announce a deal.

Initially, there was some talk about establishing a Department of Agriculture commission to set wage level and annual farmworker caps. But farm groups pushed back on that idea, sources say, and now the two groups are looking at possibly creating a formula for setting a base wage — without a commission.

Over the weekend, the tenor of the negotiations improved, sources say, providing new hope that a deal can still be reached. While Feinstein and Hatch are not part of the Gang, the two senators have long worked on the issue — and the California Democrat represents the biggest agriculture state in the country. Feinstein’s spokesman said the senator is hopeful a deal can be reached this week.

The American Farm Bureau’s Kristi Boswell said that wages and caps must be dealt with properly, or the system will remain dysfunctional.

Meanwhile, workers are relying on grass-roots forces, bringing more than 100 workers and children of workers to Capitol Hill this week to make the case to lawmakers that farmworker wages shouldn’t decrease.

“For us, the bottom line is that we do not want farmworkers to get paid less than what they are now,” said Diana Tellefson Torres, UFW national vice president and executive director of the UFW Foundation. “We’re trying to improve the conditions of farmworkers. They are really doing a lot to erode that. We feel like the agribusiness power lobby has kept workers excluded.”